The Top 3 Questions to Ask Cloud Desktop Service & DaaS Providers

We’re seeing the mass migration to cloud computing play out across industries, from law firms and healthcare organizations to financial services and engineering/construction firms. Although the differences between industries are significant, each having it’s unique computing requirements for different types of users, they all have one thing in common: They want to grow, and business growth can only be achieved with technology that creates new levels of agility so organizations can respond to business change fast.

Top 3 Questions You Need to Ask

Here are the three questions you should ask of us and any other vendor in the cloud desktop service / desktop as a service (DaaS) space.

(1) Is your DaaS cloud-native?

(2) Is your DaaS edge-native?

(3) Is your DaaS 1st party turnkey?

Of course, improved security and reliability are customer priorities too, but for us that’s sort of “Mom and apple pie”. Security and reliability are so fundamental that any weakness there should be a show stopper for you. We went to great lengths to make sure our capabilities here are superior. We separated our control plane from the data plane, so your data never crosses our cloud. You are in complete control of it, and it stays safe in Azure. Nothing short of that is acceptable. Plus, we achieve 99.95% availability for our cloud desktop service. You can bank on that!

Is Your DaaS Cloud-Native?

First, it’s not an overstatement to say that a cloud-native solution is crucial. “Crucial” means something that is “decisive in the success or failure of something.” Cloud-native is crucial to your success with cloud desktopss, and many of the IT leaders we talk to realize this. When you have time, refer back to our blog called “What is Cloud-Native VDI/DaaS? Why Does it Matter for Business Growth?”. There’s a detailed comparison of the four approaches to virtual desktops that you may find helpful. The short version is that a cloud-native DaaS solution is the only way you can get fast time-to-value (Workspot deploys in as little as a day and can then scale across the globe in minutes!) and it’s the only way you’ll achieve cloud-era business agility. What do we mean by that? If you’ve ever had to respond to a merger/acquisition and you tried to get people productive fast, either via legacy VDI or procuring physical PCs, it wasn’t fast at all. Or if you’ve had to quickly open a branch office to support new business, not only was it a slow process, it came with a pretty big price tag. Those are just two examples of how a cloud-native, enterprise-ready cloud PC service could have changed everything. For M&A, just spin up more cloud desktops or GPU cloud workstations at the cloud-edge closest to users – it can happen in minutes, not days or weeks or months. Instead of opening an expensive branch office requiring a bunch of IT infrastructure to accommodate new hires, just “give them a Workspot” (that’s how some of our customers say it!). Again – that happens in minutes, not weeks. So, cloud-native is all about agility; it’s your formula for growth!

Is Your DaaS Edge-Native?

When your DaaS solution is “edge-native” that’s how you can get better-than-physical-PC performance; doesn’t everyone want that? From power users to task workers and every other type of worker, no one wants to wait for their computer to respond. Latency in a one-data-center-on-premises-VDI-world is a productivity killer. Why would that ever be OK when there’s an alternative? Well, we can declare the days of the single data center over. Now you have 54 and counting, at least when we’re talking about Microsoft Azure you do. 54+ data centers is probably a good number for now, right? That gives you an immediate global presence if you need it, and if you don’t, that’s fine too. You just place your cloud desktops and GPU workstations in the Azure region or regions close to your users where ever they are, and they are likely going to see less than 50ms latency (way less). That is super fast! Is there any other way to achieve this? Quite simply, no. Check out our more detailed blog on the value of edge-native DaaS – it’s all about performance (and productivity!)!

Is Your DaaS 1st Party Turnkey?

The third question you need to ask: Is your DaaS solution a 1st party, turnkey service? We are not talking about a typical desktop-as-a-service scenario where a managed service provider (MSP) hosts your virtual desktops in the cloud and manages it all for you. That’s the 3rd party flavor of DaaS, and while there are some “turnkey” aspects to it (eg they own the SLA), there are some downsides that don’t make sense in the era of agile development and truly turnkey cloud services. By definition, an MSP will be running a legacy software stack for your DaaS that someone else developed. And that puts you another step removed from any decision making, which means you have practically zero influence on features and capabilities. Alternatively, if it’s Workspot’s 1st party DaaS, we are pretty much best pals, and our customer success champions intercept your ideas and requirements on a regular basis which they take directly to our development team for consideration. Sometimes new features requested by customers are deployed in days, and that’s the way it should be as far as we are concerned. Be sure to read our more detailed blog about our definition of turnkey DaaS, and what you should expect from it.

Get started asking these questions – it will be fun and fascinating to discuss the answers you get from various vendors and to explore how Workspot’s turnkey, cloud-edge PC service meets your requirements. Ready for a live demo to see how it works?

Resource

The GET Framework for VDI Solutions provides IT leaders with a structured approach to identifying requirements and evaluating the capabilities of different approaches to VDI. and cloud desktops. Read the Executive Brief now.

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What’s the Workspot difference? It goes way beyond innovative technology. We reinvented virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) as well as the business model. We’re absolutely committed to your success.